Gary Oldman Once Compared Playing Sirius Black in ‘Harry Potter’ to Shakespeare
Harry Potter welcomed Gary Oldman with open arms when he was cast as Sirius Black. After playing the character, who compared the role of Sirius to Shakespeare. Although it might not be for the reasons some might think.
Gary Oldman compared playing Sirius Black to Shakespeare
Oldman might’ve found playing Sirius Black a bit more surface-level than his usual characters. Way back in 2004, he was pretty upfront that he only took the role because it was available work. The Harry Potter franchise’s appeal to kids was also a bonus seeing as Oldman had a family of his own.
“Well, I needed the work – that’s the honest answer,” Oldman once told The Telegraph (via HPANA). “I haven’t worked for a while, a couple of years. So I thought it would be nice to get back to work and earn some money. Pay the bills. Also, it’s prestigious, it’s a phenomenon, so you’re not just making a movie. It’s joining the family of some kind of cinematic dynasty I suppose. It is interesting to be a part of that. The material was good, the director was interesting and it is nice to actually be in a movie that my kids could see.”
But he asserted that he didn’t have to do much to bring his character to life, as Sirius’ story arc was pretty simple.
“I’m playing him as a bad guy and then you make that twist. It’s a bit like playing Shakespeare,” Oldman continued. “Shakespeare doesn’t really write subtext, you play the subtext. You do it all in the line, I’ve not embellished it with a whole lot of psychology. It’s a certain technique to playing it, a certain style. I appear, you think I’m the bad guy and through the course of the scene you realize, ‘oh he’s not that’. But when you see me, I have an energy and intensity and the audience, not being familiar with the book, would still think that I‘m actually after Harry Potter and that I’m presumably in cahoots with Voldemort. I guess what I am saying is you play him as a good guy but he has been wrongfully accused and imprisoned.”
Gary Oldman sets the record straight on ‘mediocre’ comments
Oldman stirred up a lot of conversation last year when he discussed his thoughts on the Harry Potter franchise. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he reflected on his own performance as Sirius Black. Oldman felt he was capable of bringing a lot more to the role than he did at the time.
“I think my work is mediocre in it,” Oldman said. “No, I do. Maybe if I had read the books like Alan [Rickman], if I had got ahead of the curve, if I had known what’s coming, I honestly think I would have played it differently.”
Recently, the Oscar winner revisited those comments in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. There, he went into a little more detail about his remarks.
“Not to disparage anyone out there who are fans of the Harry Potter films and the character who I think is much beloved … What I meant by that is I think as any artist, actor, painter, you are always hypercritical of your own work,” he said. “If you’re not and you’re satisfied with what you’re doing, that would be death to me. If I had watched a performance of myself and thought: ‘My God, I’m fantastic in this,’ that would be a sad day. My best work is next year.”
Oldman went on to clarify that he wished he had a clearer picture of his character Sirius Black to better inform his performance.
“When I started Harry Potter, all I had was the book and the representation of that man — one book in the library of Sirius Black,” he said. “It’s not me looking at the movie and saying it’s a terrible film or I’m terrible, I just wish it had been under different circumstances. Not to be rude to any of the people out there who like that film.”
Gary Oldman credited the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise for saving his career
Oldman had seen better days by the time Harry Potter came around. He was going through both personal and professional problems.
“At 42 years old, I woke up divorced and I had custody of these boys and so that, in itself, was…That was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were being [filmed in], it was Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places,” Oldman once said on The Drew Barrymore Show.
But landing Harry Potter and the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise meant he could be with his family while still making good money.
“Thank God for Harry Potter. I tell you, the two, Batman and Harry Potter, really they saved me, because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids,” he added.
